Jane Robins

White Bodies by Jane Robins is a 2017 Touchstone publication.

Unconventional, incongruous, and macabre-

Callie and Tilda are twins, but are polar opposites, in appearance and personality. Tilda, an actress, is on the cusp of stardom, while Callie stands in the shadows, living a quiet life as a bookstore clerk.

But, when Tilda becomes involved with Felix, Callie begins to worry that Tilda is withdrawing, losing weight, maybe abusing herself or being abused by Felix, putting her career in show more jeopardy, all due to Felix’s controlling obsessive compulsiveness.

Callie joins an online support group for women who are trying to extricate themselves from abusive and controlling relationships. She even participates in chat room conversations hoping to find a way to understand the hold Felix has over her sister and to seek help in finding a way to rescue Tilda.

In the meantime, Callie keeps tabs on Tilda, looking for signs of abuse or clues to her sister’s mental state, when all the while she fails to see the irony in her own increasing obsession with Tilda.

The further entangled she becomes with the online support group, the deeper her obsession grows until she finds herself embroiled in their plans to free those trapped in controlling relationships by any means necessary.

This book is messed up. Really, really messed up. Callie relates the series of events from her own first person narrative, so we see things from her perspective and only through her eyes.

The insight comes from the background information provided about the twins’ upbringing and the type of bond they formed early in life. Callie’s unusual methods of feeling close to Tilda are one of the most troubling aspects of the book, and one you won't forget anytime soon.

I thought the story was highly imaginative, with a nice nod to ‘Strangers on a Train’, a setup that is as effective today as it was back then. The creation of such a fraught and unsettling atmosphere is very well done and even has a slight noir quality to it that I really liked, but also had an edgy type of dark humor, that may have simply been in my imagination, but I honestly found myself delighted by some of the twists, even if they were mostly untenable.

Tensions rose on several fronts, and all them are beyond twisted. Obsession is definitely the word of the day in this book and it can come in many different forms, especially when it comes to family bonds, which can be the most complex of all relationships, perhaps more so with sisters, who can often have thorny connections, but Cassie and Tilda take that to an entirely new level.

The novel kept me entranced and fascinated, but also kept me off balance, and on my toes. No reading on auto-pilot.

But as the book wound around to its final moments, the pacing began to slow down, causing me to let down my defenses a little, but, beware of that lull. There is still one final revelation. Now, normally, I love one last turn of the screw, but this one nearly derailed the entire book. Seasoned readers of psychological thrillers will have to stifle a groan, because everything good that went before fell into a predictable trap, resulting in an epic fail.

Despite that one big faux pas, and overdoing it in a few spots, this is an admirable fiction debut from an author accustomed to writing historical non-fiction. There were many elements I liked about the story, which mostly made up for the missteps. So, although it is a little rough around the edges, it is still worth checking out, especially if you enjoy psychological thrillers. show less

Felix and Tilda seem like the perfect couple: young and in love, a financier and a beautiful up-and-coming starlet. But behind their flawless façade, not everything is as it seems. Callie, Tilda’s unassuming twin, has watched her sister visibly shrink under Felix’s domineering love. She has looked on silently as Tilda stopped working, nearly stopped eating, and turned into a neat freak, with mugs wrapped in Saran Wrap and suspicious syringes hidden in the bathroom trash. She knows about show more Felix’s uncontrollable rages, and has seen the bruises on the white skin of her sister’s arms. Worried about the psychological hold that Felix seems to have over Tilda, Callie joins an Internet support group for victims of abuse and their friends. However, things spiral out of control and she starts to doubt her own judgment when one of her new acquaintances is killed by an abusive man. And then suddenly Felix dies—or was he murdered?

It was a slower starter than I had thought it would be and the skipping backward and forward in ten year intervals was a bit off setting. However the psychologically, sophisticated tale more than compensated for it. The sisters’ relationship is undeniably the most intriguing part of the story. Had this been a character study of the obsessive, bordering on fanatical, relationship between twin sisters it would be a five star novel. In spite of the fact that I read a book for the mystery, suspense and the crime.... I have to say that in this case it's unfortunately the crime that bogs down the story. Anyone that is bothered by reading about domestic violence may want to skip this one entirely. show less

The Magnificent Spilsbury and the Case of the Brides in the Bath is a non-fiction history by Jane Robins in which she explores the sinister deaths of a string of almost-"spinster" women, mysteriously drowning in rooming house baths within a few days or weeks of marrying. The years involved range from approximately 1908 to 1915, the places primarily the seaside towns of England, and the individual involved in all the cases was the multiple-aliased George Joseph Smith (aka Henry Williams aka show more John Lloyd, etc.). The "magnificent Spilsbury" of the title is the young forensic pathologist, Bernard Spilsbury, who brought scientific analysis into the courtroom, and it was, indeed, largely his evidence that convicted Smith of multiple murders. Robins' book alternates chapters between the stories of the female victims and the development of the pathologist's expertise; the full story is told in an engaging style, but every quote she uses is well-sourced, either to interviews by police or to newspaper articles concerning the crimes and the trial, or to books written by some of the involved parties after the fact. What's most interesting to me is that in her last chapters Robins points out that most of the "science" the Spilsbury confidently put forth to condemn the evil Smith has since been disproven - that is, the man was convicted on false evidence! However, there's no doubt that he was guilty, which raises more questions to ponder. I think a good historical treatise should leave one with more questions than answers at the end, and this does a good job of that. A really fascinating glimpse into the English world of 100 years ago, now long gone; recommended! show less

This is a fun read that puts a 21st century twist on the premise of the famous 1951 Alfred Hitchcock movie, Strangers on a Train. That’s the one where two strangers fall into conversation and agree to murder a person of the other’s choosing. They convince themselves that, since there is nothing to connect murderer and victim, the crimes will be easy to get away with. Right.
But, how would you effect such an anonymous encounter today? Where would you look for such a willing accomplice? The show more Internet, of course! “The internet is where psychos find each other,” says character Tilda. And Robins makes good use of the strengths and weaknesses of social media in crafting her tale.
The protagonist in this London-based domestic thriller is Callie—a bit socially awkward, insecure about her looks (and everything else), a librarian. The relationship between her and her glamorous twin sister Tilda is explored in both the current time and a succession of flashbacks. Callie increasingly believes that “the perfect man” Tilda has become involved with—the wealthy, handsome, larger-than-life and more than a bit obsessive-compulsive American, Felix Nordberg—is actually quite dangerous.
Desperate to help Tilda, Callie becomes involved with a website called controllingmen.com, where all the classic signs of a relationship headed toward abuse are spelled out, just the way she sees them in Tilda and Felix’s relationship.
But Tilda dismisses her sister’s concerns, and you’ll understand Callie’s bafflement at how to proceed without creating a rift between them. At times you may want to wring her neck for the way she can’t stop herself from blurting out her suspicions. Moreover, she can’t seem to see how her obsession with Tilda and Felix is interfering with her own life.
We know from the first pages that Felix is dead. But was he murdered? The medical examiner says he died from natural causes. Although I thought I understood how Felix died, I hadn’t reckoned with Jane Robins’s diabolical imagination. I had to reread some of the last bits to be sure I understood the extent of the duplicity. That sense of something happening behind the scenes that I hadn’t quite grasped really kept the pages turning.
Robins has written several true-crime and non-fiction books and has a straightforward style that is a nice counterpoint to the emotions rampaging through Callie, and every one of the main characters in White Bodies is believable.
As a side note, a disadvantage to book reviewing is the “promotional cover.” The White Bodies review copy bore a temporary cover with a quote in all-capital scarlet letters, “Everyone wants someone murdered.” Not the kind of thing you can put on an empty train seat beside you for a stranger to see. show less